The answer is an easy one for the boat and barge hanging out in Perdido Pass recently and receiving visits from a jack-up boat. Walter Marine, also known as the Reefmaker, is almost doubling the reef structures in the three snorkeling reef zones just off of the beaches. Two are in Orange Beach at the shell parking lot east of the pass and at the Gulf State Park Romar Beach Access. The third is in front of the state parks pavilion.
“The Maranatha and barge are loaded with snorkeling reef material,” owner David Walter said. “The jack-up ‘Maggie’ loads as many as it can carry every evening and the next day transports them to one of three sites for deployment. There are 327 reef units.”
Just off the beach near the pavilion Walter Marine is putting the finishing touches on one design and building a completely new one in the shape of one of the area’s most popular marine species.
“The one at the park is deployed as the state of Alabama and a dolphin that can be seen from space,” Walter said. “There are two poles on the beach for swimmers to use to find the reefs. Line the two poles up and you are over the reefs. The (shape of) the state of Alabama was already there but it was missing a few pieces. This time we’re finishing that up and adding a dolphin next to that.”
This time around the cost is about $1.2 million to install the concrete and limestone structures.
“The northern boundary of the reefs will be in about 10 feet of water and the southern boundary of the reefs will extend to about 20 feet,” Kevin Anson of the state’s Marine Resources division said. “They each will contain two, three or four concrete disks on a piling. The piling will be jetted into the seabed about 12 or 13 feet.”
The first project was completed in 2018 and added the first 166 snorkeling reefs in the three zones. It was about a $590,000 project paid for with BP fine money administered through National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant.
Over the years, Walter estimated his company has put in about 50,000 reefs and also back in 2018 went to work putting in 600 pyramid reefs in zones six to nine miles offshore from Dauphin Island to the Florida line. Included in that project were 140 25-foot pyramid super reefs.
It was part of a $4 million state effort that also included deploying the New Venture, a 250-foot former research vessel that now sits on the bottom of the Gulf about 20 miles south of Orange Beach or about two miles south from where the LuLu was sunk in May of 2013.
But the snorkeling reef project is one Vince Lucido of the Alabama Gulf Coast Reef and Restoration Foundation has been longing to see since his group spearheaded the effort to sink the 271-foot LuLu on Memorial Day weekend of 2013, also a Walter Marine project.
“It’s something we’ve been waiting on for years,” Lucido said after the initial deployment.
Almost immediately, officials say, marine life will be attracted to the new structures but it will take them a while to mature to the level of the first 166 deployed.
“Very quickly you’d see some life but I would think within a year you’d have a fully functioning reef with all types of life you’d expect to find on a colonized reef,” Orange Beach Coastal Resources Director Phillip West said. “Everything from seahorses to octopus to sea turtles and various fish.”
For the coordinates to all of the reefs in the Alabama system visit https://www.outdooralabama.com/saltwater-fishing/artificial-reefs and scroll to the bottom of the page for a map and links to the reefs.
